Healthy rangeland makes a good watershed. There is strong complimentarity between watershed condition, carbon storage, biodiversity, and solar energy capture. Our soils, and landscape resilience, evolved from a crucible of disturbance by grazing and fire, punctuated with periods of recovery. Foothills ranches have evolved an ecological role and awareness, where working landscapes have survived.

The significant positive factors for watershed management from past government policy have been:

1) The creation of forest reserves, and grazing leases. (Grazing lease dispositions in effect parallel the modern day conservation easement, with the covenant between the user and province. The mosaic of private and public lands, provide a framework for ranches to evolve to economic and ecological scale.)

2) The recognition of need to upgrade range management in forest reserves in the 1940’s.

3) The creation of Kananaskis country, which reversed the trend for high impact random camping and ATV abuse.

4) Advances in wildfire management that prevent destructive fires.

5) Introduction of fire as an ecological tool, (as exemplified by Barry Adams collaborative approach with Mt. Sentinel and D Ranch projects, and Park’s management integration of controlled burning).

6) The initiative driven by Barry Adams and Lorne Fitch to introduce the first Riparian management workshop in Alberta, and the Creation of the Cows and Fish Program.

7) Range schools, set up by Public lands, which promote ecological awareness and skills.

Public policy setbacks:

1) Introduction of agricultural deficiency payments by the Nixon administration led to the commoditization and industrialization of agriculture. Human and agricultural capital bled from rural lands as commodity prices plummeted. (The Omnivore’s Dilemma- Michael Pollen, End of Food- Paul Roberts).

2) The evolution of agriculture as substrate for public wealth transfers to agribusiness. (Against the Grain – Richard Manning)

3) Alberta Agriculture’s support for intensive grain based cattle production, instead of an industry based on rangeland, forage, and solar energy.

4) The semantics of sustainability. All government departments should be focused on sustainable development. The departments that look after lands, forests, soils and watershed need to focus on natural capital preservation and fostering regenerative economies. These departments represent regenerative resources.

5) We need to confront ideology that facilitates the privatization and monetization of public assets, and the socialization of liabilities. Much of Alberta’s resource wealth has flowed to shareholders around the world, and Albertans present and future are left to pay the bills for infrastructure and environmental deficits and liabilities. After years of record oil and gas development, and record commodity prices, the government can’t meet its operating obligations without drawing on meager savings or borrowing money.

6) Corporations which monetize our public assets, have tremendous resources to advocate their position, by PR, by political lobby, and by their ability to buy legal and professional support in quasi judicial, and judicial proceedings. In this province we reward those who liquidate our assets, and penalize those who steward and conserve our natural capital.

7) Our government looks to markets for direction, but leadership and stewardship is about giving markets direction and protecting opportunity for future generations.

8 ) Democracy struggles between representatives who follow public opinion, and representatives who lead opinion. Free societies, are about having choices, but healthy and prosperous societies are about making good choices. Good choices have to come from sound, enduring principles and reason, not fads, lobbyists, or popular opinion.

Required changes:

1) We have been brainwashed to believe that we need to sacrifice the environment to build economies. In his book Economics and Ethics (1923), Sir John Arthur Marriot noted Adam Smith’s observation in the Wealth of Nations “No equal capital puts into motion a greater quantity of productive labor than that of the farmer.. in agriculture Nature labors along with man.”

Nature herself is the ultimate capitalist. Consider how this world evolved from a desolate inhospitable orb to the splendid abundance and diversity of life on Planet Earth. All we are and all we have, has come from nature.

Lasting prosperity and quality of life can only maintained by stewarding our life support, and natures’ capacity for regeneration.

2) The Alberta government needs to prioritize the sale of assets by selecting projects that provide the most benefit and least harm.

3) As we liquidate non renewable assets we need to reinvest in regenerative assets, which include; knowledge, ecological and economic literacy, and the preservation of working rangelands, especially between the Highwood and Oldman Rivers. This is where the most precipitation falls on the south eastern slopes, and encompasses arguably the most effective watershed area in the South Eastern slopes. (Kananaskis Sub Regional Resource Plan, Eastern Slopes Policy document (1984), and inference from Spray Lakes Management Plan hydrology data, Pekisko and Trap Creek precipitation reports)

4) We need to garner financial resources to purchase voluntary conservation easements. Today a ranch of 4,000 acres on prime range can sustain about 200 mother cows which might net a $40,000 return to a rancher holding ten million dollars of assets. The Rancher could simply monetize the land and at a four percent return receive annual investment income of $400,000. Ranch families have made considerable economic sacrifices, to hold together working landscapes.

5) We need to identify the value of ecological goods and services. For instance: The upper 50,000 acres of Pekisko watershed receives about 108,000 acre feet of annual precipitation. If the yield to streams and aquifers is sixty percent, and if that captured precipitation was priced at the Eastern Irrigation District delivery rates, the annual value from those fifty thousand acres would be 1.6 million dollars or $33/ acre/year. If priced at Calgary water customer rates, the average annual value would approximate 94 million dollars, or more than $1,850 dollars per acre, per year.

6) Water yield and releases depend upon vegetative cover. Whatever plans, policy and platitudes are offered, at the end of the day, watershed value is the product of plant and animal interaction on the landscape within the variables of weather and fire. Ranches are not simply an interest group, but an integral part of working ecological landscapes and effective watersheds. Each percent of water yield performance carries a high value.

7) Timber harvest on the Eastern Slopes needs to be coordinated and sometimes integrated with ranch operations. Priority should be given to optimizing water infiltration and yield, biodiversity, energy flow, and resilience. Intrusive roads and activity are unnecessary if small seasonal timber harvests proceed with small equipment and footprints. Planning would involve expertise of government, industry, and ranch operations to achieve landscape goals and stable local employment. Spray Lake would process and market timber, but harvest procedure would enhance local landscape and community, while preserving esthetics.

Community Action:

Our Community has been concerned with the forces threatening the eastern slopes particularly, between the Highwood and Oldman Rivers.

Ranchers created the Southern Alberta Land Trust Society, to avoid landscape fragmentation and preserve regenerative capital of land community and culture.

Ranchers Initiated the Southern Foothills Study to provide objective insight into our current trajectories.

Since April of 2003, our community has requested a moratorium on invasive footprints until a plan is place for the area between the Highwood and Oldman Rivers, which would preserve the working landscapes, and a full complement of ecosystem goods and services.

In January of 2006, three Pekisko Group members met with Petro Canada, Nexen, and Shell to seek support for halting development until a land use framework was in place. They declined.

There is support from area landowners outside the MD of Ranchland to have contiguous rangelands annexed by the Ranchland MD to preserve open landscapes, and all their potential.

Today we stand at a cross roads. The fate of the eastern slopes will impact the future well being of Albertans, and their quality of life. Time will tell if we align policy with ecological reality or political pressures and ideology. I remember Grant MacEwan in the 1970’s requesting Albertans to resist an “economy of plunder”, and to embrace stewardship and citizenship. How will we answer the call?

Tags: News, Pekisko Group, Water

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